


Thawing

by schrijverr



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cold, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, Mostly hurt, but i love julie so much that she had to be there, mostly reggie focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27976809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrijverr/pseuds/schrijverr
Summary: Reggie is always cold, Julie misses her mom, they find each other.
Relationships: Julie Molina & Reggie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	Thawing

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find this on my tumblr, which is @schrijverr as well. Hope you pop in and say hi, cause i'd love to talk to y'all <3

Reggie had always been cold. It didn’t matter that LA was always hot, it didn’t matter that he wore three layers in the heat that had other shedding layers like their life depended on them. Reggie would always be cold.

The second thing Luke every said to him was: “Dude, your hands are freaking cold, are you okay, man?” right after he had introduced himself with a handshake.

And Alex would prefer playing with Luke or Bobby’s fingers when he was anxious, because the cold made him think of corpses, which only freaked him out more. While Bobby would pull him along on his clothed wrist instead of his hand, like he did with the other, when he was excited about showing them something.

It was just a thing.

He would shiver and bury himself under a few blankets and wish he would become a little less cold, even if it was for just a moment.

Reggie tried so hard to be warm, he hoped he would invoke it by smiling, by joking, by being goofy and making people laugh, but the cold would always come back. Playing helped. He would still be clothed in too many layers for the heat of the stage lamps, but at the end he would be sweaty and his cheeks would be flushed with heat that only melted away when the high of preforming was over.

The others tried to help, of course. There were blankets in the studio and Reggie had a vast collection of stolen/gifted hoodies and sweaters, but it wouldn't be enough.

It’s not like he wasn’t used to the constant cold, but it sucked.

He clung to the warmth of his friends. Luke was like a living furnace and he never minded Reggie burrowing into his side, Alex would allow him to live in his jacket alongside him when he wasn’t being anxious and Bobby made sure the heating would be on and there were blankets lying around whenever Reggie came over.

It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. The cold would sometimes melt away and two layers would be enough to keep him from shivering. He could smile with friends, wrapped up in their comfort and warmth, while he pretend his bones weren’t made out of ice.

Then they died.

Reggie always thought that there would be nothing after death, or at least nothing that would bother a mortal. He had never considered being cold as a ghost.

But here he was, sitting on the studio floor in all his layers on top of a blanket that had phased through him when he tried to burrow into it. They hadn’t been back long, but Alex was on his anxious walks and Luke was trying to see what had happened to his parents, leaving Reggie cold and alone.

He had expected to sit there until one of them came back, not that it would help, Reggie had quickly discovered that death did not save his friends from the cold. 

They might not be cold themselves, but they felt cold to the touch, as if all their warmth, all their life had been sucked out of them. And all the brightness and liveliness they had carried with them before would do nothing to ignite a bit of warmth in Reggie's chest.

However there was one other person that he had forgotten about.

Julie opened the door and immediately spotted Reggie, huddled into a ball in the corner of the room next to the radiator. Worriedly she walked over and asked: “Reggie? Reggie, are you okay? What happened?”

“C- cold.” he stuttered out, looking up pitifully as a shiver wracked through his body and his teeth clattered.

“What? How? Is it a ghost thing?” Julie asked him.

“It’s a- a Reggie thing.” he tried to assure her, “I’ve al- always been c- cold, usually one of the- of the others is able to warm me u- up a bit, b- but it seems the thing about g- ghost being cold is true. So, it’s b- back to me being c- cold again.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.” Julie said with a sympathetic face, before she sat down next to him turning up the heat. 

She grabbed the blanket and pats the ground between her legs: “I might not be able to touch you, but I can cocoon you and hope it helps, at least you won’t be alone.”

Reggie gave her an inquisitive look, but didn’t protest the potential warmth. He did feel a bit guilt as he said: “You probably have much better things to do, sorry.”

“Nah.” she smiles, “I was actually coming here to be sad about my mom, I just really missed her today. It’s nice not to feel alone.”

That he could understand, Reggie would always pressed up next to people, leech on their warmth and liveliness with the hope he would absorb some of it. He softly asked: “Do you want to talk about it?”

Julie shook her head, so Reggie remained silent. He might not be the brightest, but even he could read the room.

Curled up into a ball he sat with Julie on the floor in silence, it would be boring, but it was just comfortable. They were both broken in a different way and they took comfort out of the presence of the other.

They sat there for so long that Reggie didn’t even notice it when he stopped shivering and Julie didn’t notice when her thoughts drifted from the emptiness of where her mom used to be to the new life in the garage.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my day and Kudos are amazing, so thank you so much for leaving any if you did <3


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